Concept plans given to council (#807)

Concept plans for the Denmark Aquatic Facility were presented to a special meeting of Councillors last Tuesday and DACCI hopes that Council will consider these at its next meeting on 12 June.

Earlier this year, Councillors had been advised that the plan which was the basis of the professional feasibility study could cost ratepayers as much as $1.15M annually.  Clearly this is beyond the community’s capacity to pay.  However, DACCI and the Shire’s Project Team have challenged this claim and produced alternative concept plans that reduce the annual cost to one quarter of this amount..

DACCI’s plans will be put to the community in the coming weeks but for now its enough to say that, by reducing the building footprint from 2,240m² to 1,146m² and avoiding duplication, the consultant’s $8.24M building cost the has been trimmed to $4.76M without any loss of functionality. 

We have also suggested a funding scenario based on the successful model used by the new facility at Pinjarra.  In that case the State government provided 40% of the $7.2M project cost and the Federal government chipped in 17% for hydrotherapy.  Alcoa made a $1M donation, $94k came from the community and the remainder was provided by a Shire loan.

DACCI’s funding plan assumes that we might be equally successful in our grant applications – and recognising the key role of corporate and private donations to community wellbeing we have asked Council consider establishing a Pool Reserve Fund to receive such contributions.  We have pledged an amount of $200k as a start-up and we invite those cheques to start rolling.

Once a decision to proceed has been made, the progression from dream to reality is likely to take at least two and a half years.  We’ve targeted the opening for Australia Day 2015. 

During this period we propose that ratepayers contribute to the Pool Reserve a sum equal to the annual subsidy that the facility will need once it becomes operational.  Our aim is to save (should this really be so old-fashioned?) at least $950k by the end of 2014.  It would cost the average ratepayer $1.50 per week, or $78pa as a special fixed rise in rates quarantined from all other Shire funds and reduce the size of the required Shire loan to $1.12M.  Our plan costs $83k pa to finance rather than the consultant’s $446k and we’ll argue that the proposed cash depreciation charge of $301k pa should be abandoned.  (These two items alone account for $747k of the original $1.12M).  Every dollar saved today is worth nearly two over the life of the loan.

Once the facility becomes operational, these quarantined contributions will continue and provide a subsidy just under $300k pa. This figure is based on the most pessimistic user generated revenue and is thus conservative.  The more realistic revenue forecast by the consultant would reduce this ratepayer subsidy to $1.05 a week.

Let’s get on with it!

Cyril Edwards, DACCI, denmarkpool@gmail.com and http://www.denmarkpool.blogspot.com.